Servant paid £2.50 an hour wins tribunal against Arab Princess

An Arab Princess has been ordered to pay £175,000 in compensation to a servant
paid less than £2.50 an hour who was forced to dig into his own pocket to
cover the food bills from Harrods because Tesco was not considered good
enough.

Mr Saikh was often forced to shop at Harrods using his own moneyPhoto: ANDREW CROWLEY

Mohammed Saikh, 41, said that the weekly £200 budget allocated for the family’s food was not always enough to buy everything that was required from the exclusive retailer.

But he was not allowed to save money by shopping at the local branch of Tesco and so often had to meet the balance himself, according to a statement he gave to the Central London Employment Tribunal.

Mr Saikh said that if he requested more money from the family of Sheikh Khalid bin Saqr Al Qasimi, a former Crown Prince of the United Arab Emirates, he would be shouted at.

He sued the family, claiming for failure to pay the minimum wage, race discrimination, failure to provide holiday pay and breach of time regulations.

Mr Saikh, an Indian national who rose at 5am every day to look after up to 18 people at the family’s home in Kensington, west London, said: "One of the children liked roast corn, but wouldn’t let me buy it from the Tesco near the house.

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"She would insist that I went to Harrods where it cost a lot more. Often the budget would run out because of the things I was asked to buy.

"I can recall asking for money to buy one of the extra purchases and being shouted at by the family.

"On some occasions I would have to use the little money I had to cover the purchase of if I had none, I would borrow it from the bodyguard.

"I would then take it back from the following week’s budget.”

The servant was employed by the family in Dubai in April 2003 and later moved with them to the UK.

He was promised £400 a month to look after the Sheikh’s wife Sheikha Fawaghi bin Saqr bin Sultan Al Qasimi, their six children and other family members, working 40 hours a week but was often woken with demands to cook meals in the early hours of the morning.

Michael Reed, his lawyer, told the hearing that he had been “treated abominably”.

Mr Saikh eventually fled from the home in December 2009.

Sheikha Fawaghi automatically lost the case after failing to appear before the tribunal. Proceedings against her husband were delayed because he is under house arrest in Dubai.

Tribunal judge Alison Lewzey stressed that the judgment was “susceptible to any application for review” as it had been made "in default”.

Separate proceedings against the couple, brought by a second Indian servant, Anwar Batcha, 34, were postponed until he can prove that he had a right to remain in the UK.